Abstract:

This study explores administrative culture and examines its impact on the reform of
performance appraisal in Uganda’s civil service, an area which has received little
attention from researchers. It reveals that Uganda’s bureaucracy is characterized by large
power distance, strong uncertainty avoidance, high ethnicity and political neutrality.
Evidence for this study gathered from 147 questionnaires, 29 interviews and various
documents for eight months indicates that these cultural variables influence the
introduction of performance appraisal by sabotaging its actual conduct and undermining
its institutionalization. The study supports the use of power distance and uncertainty
avoidance by various scholars to analyze the linkage between administrative culture and
instruments of management. The additional dimensions of political (neutrality) biasness
and ethnicity pursued by this study are a highly relevant addition to the literature on
administrative culture, and the linkage between administrative culture and instruments of
management.
Findings further indicate that administrative culture in Uganda’s bureaucracy is quite
unified and integrated. Background variables such as age, type of education, duration of
service, studying abroad, birthplace and gender have limited or no influence on
administrative culture. It is only the level of education which has a strong negative
correlation, i.e. higher levels of education is associated with low power distance, low
uncertainty avoidance, low political neutrality, and low ethnicity.
The thesis argues that for the successful introduction of performance appraisals, culture
matters because the performance appraisal is imposed from abroad and requires a
compatible host administrative culture in order to take root. In this case, the host
administrative culture was not compatible in many respects with the values underlying
the appraisal reforms. Although the Ugandan government successfully introduced the
appraisal reforms, the incompatibility between the values embedded in the appraisal and
the host administrative culture watered down the reform.